Page 101 of Forbidden Dark Vows

By the time I’ve used them all up, a line of positive results staring back at me from the glass shelf in the bathroom, and I’m already thinking of baby names.

I’m going to have a baby!

I squeal at my reflection in the mirror and pop a baby pickle into my mouth.

34

HARRY

Celia opensthe door to her home in Chicago and goes to close it again when she sees me standing on the front step.

But my foot is already inside the door. “We need to talk, Celia.”

“I have nothing to say to you.” She grips the side of the door, hiding behind it, only her face visible. “If you don’t move your foot, I’ll call the police.”

“Fine. Go ahead. I’m sure they’ll be interested in what I have to say too.”

Her face pales, her mouth chewing on words that don’t quite make it. Several moments pass before she stands back and opens the door wide enough for me to enter. She doesn’t wait around for me. I close the door and follow her to the kitchen, surprised to find that it’s no longer the bright and sunny room that I remember from my previous visit with Graham.

I can’t quite put my finger on what’s different. There’s no sunlight pouring through the window, but it isn’t that.

The counter is littered with dirty dishes and stained mugs. A loaf of sliced bread is open on the side; an almost-empty jar, the lid sticky with dried jam; the apples in the fruit bowl turning brown and wrinkled. There’s no welcoming aroma of freshly brewed coffee. Instead, a bottle of red wine is open on the side, several stained wine glasses lined up next to the sink.

Celia leans against the counter and folds her arms across her chest. “Go on then, say what you have to say and get this over with.”

Looking at the woman standing in front of me, I struggle to find any resemblance to her daughter. She is all hard lines to Ruby’s soft curves. Her lips are pinched together, an expression I’ve never seen on Ruby, her dislike obvious in her dark eyes and lowered brows. Her blond hair has been scraped back into a ponytail, and she isn’t wearing any makeup, so what I’m seeing now is the real Celia, not the well-groomed woman she usually presents to the world outside this house.

“I know you poisoned Ruby.”

I want to get out of this place Ruby used to call home, catch my flight back to New York, and wrap my arms around this woman’s daughter. I hate lying to Ruby, but I needed to do this alone. I need to hear what she has to say, give her my proposition, and walk away from Celia Jackson without a backward glance.

“Ha!” she scoffs. “Is that it? Is that what you came all this way to say?”

“Are you denying it?”

“I don’t have to deny anything to you, asshole. You think you can stroll into my house, accuse me of something like that, and expect me to wave my hands in the air and say, ‘I did it.’ You’vegot some fucking nerve. Get out.” She turns away, fills a glass with red wine and takes a large gulp.

“You poisoned my mom too.”

Now, she’s listening. Her eyes are on the run, darting around the room like she’s searching for something to stab me with. I’m grateful that I can’t see a sharp knife anywhere.

“Fuck off, Harry. What shit has your dad been feeding you?”

“He never told me. I found my mom’s postmortem report. She had traces of arsenic in her system the same as Ruby did. Only my mom had more severe complications that resulted in her death.”

Celia swallows another mouthful of wine. She doesn’t look at me. “So, now you’re accusing me of murder.” Her tone is dull, flat, matching the look in her eyes that are fixated on a spot in the middle of the floor.

“If she hadn’t been given arsenic, she wouldn’t have died.”

A grim smile twists her lips to one side. “You’re a fucking coward just like your father. You can’t even say what you mean, can you?”

I ignore her. I’m not playing games—I’m here to say my piece and go home to my fiancée. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks getting my head around what Celia did. I can’t bring my mom back, but I can make sure that this woman has no place in our future or the future of our children.

“What I want to know is, how you justified harming your daughter to yourself.”

The twisted smile becomes a smirk. “You have no proof that it was me.”

“True.” I shrug. “But you didn’t react to me telling you that Ruby had arsenic poisoning, and that’s all I need to know.” I pause, allowing this to sink in. “Oh, and just in case you’re trying to scheme your way out of this and turn it around on me somehow, I can find proof that it was you.”

---